Again and Then Again - Beneath a Moonless Sky
by CrazyWritingChick
Summary: What really happened during the events of Beneath a Moonless Sky. Terrified of facing another day without him, Christine seeks out Erik in the dark of the night. Will he accept her as she bares all the things that were left unsaid? Events take place between Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies - ChristinexErik - One Shot


_**Author Note:** I haven't written FanFiction in years, go easy on me! I know this has been done many times before but I wanted to add my version of what happened on the night of Beneath a Moonless Sky. Enjoy. _

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The staircase leading down into the cold, damp depths of the old church was impossibly dark.

I shivered as a breeze licked at my exposed forearms, my cloak not doing much in the way of keeping me warm. I'd left the house in such a hurry that I hadn't bothered to dress properly against the coolness of the night. My thoughts were on one thing and one thing only: finding Him.

The night was black, the moon was nowhere to be seen as I stumbled to where I hoped He was. Gripping the crumpled note between my fingertips, I squinted in the darkness at the scribbled handwriting. An anonymous tip delivered to me by Raoul's maidservant, or soon to be my maidservant tomorrow. The note had been slipped to her under the strictest of orders that I did not find out who posted it.

The brush stilled in my hair as I prepared for bed, the note gingerly sliding across my vanity. When I peeled off the red wax seal on the parchment, my heart instantly dropped to my toes. Scrawled in hasty black ink was an address.

An address that could only lead to one thing, one person.

The church that it lead to was long abandoned on the outskirts of Paris. A fire had ravaged the once Holy place and left nothing but dismal ruins in its wake. It seemed fitting for my angel of the night to hide out in the decaying ruins of a once Holy house of worship.

I squared my shoulders and filled my lungs with a deep intake of air, crumpling the paper of the note in my sweating palms. My foot tentatively took one step into the darkness of the stairs, and then another. I held the cold, stone wall for support as I further descended into the blinding dark, my eyes trying in vain to adjust to the blackness around me.

With each step, doubt clouded my judgement. How on Earth was I going to find him in the shadows? The cold air burned my throat as I made it to the bottom of the stairs and I tugged the cloak closer around my shoulders for warmth. The slow prickle of tears instantly washed away at the slightest flicker of candlelight in the distance.

I could feel my chest swell with hope as my heartbeat drummed in my ears. I tiptoed away from the darkness and close to the flame, my glimmer of hope. There was life here. He had to be here.

"Erik?" I called into the shadows, my voice shaky to my own ears.

I was met with silence in response as I passed another candle and then another. I followed the path of light deeper into the caverns of the old church. Droplets of water trickled down from the walls due to the dampness of the stone until finally, the narrow hallway broke open into a large room.

With the dim candlelight from the hallway being the only source of light, I glanced back over my shoulder at it, saying goodbye to the flames that helped me make it this far.

Another deep breath of air before I swallowed, "Erik?"

"Tell me it isn't true." His low voice echoed from the other side of the room, "Tell me you didn't come back."

A shiver ran down my spine at the rasp in his throat while my heart skipped at the sound. My feet moved closer towards his voice, my ears feeling around in the darkness to where he might be in the shadows.

"I came back." I breathed.

"You shouldn't be here."

Again, my feet moved on their own accord. His voice sounded near to me now and I knew the distance between us couldn't be much longer. I was so close.

"Why did you come here?" He boomed and my eyes snapped open. I couldn't see his face but I could make out the outline of his shirtless figure in the pitch-black. I was rendered speechless as I took in his hunched form, he was sitting on something. Which I finally determined was a bed, _his_ bed. I swallowed hard when I realized I had woken him.

Fighting the urge to reach out to him in the darkness, I widened my stance. "I came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" He scoffed, "I thought we did that only a month ago."

"It's real this time." I didn't like the way my voice trembled as I tried to talk to him, I sounded weak. This wasn't how I pictured this going, "I need to lay this to rest once and for all."

"I am to be married tomorrow."

I heard a deep, humourless chuckle in the darkness, "To be married? You came all this way to tell me what I already knew? Must you torture me?"

"No." I lifted my chin and swallowed down any nerves that were beginning to throb in my throat, "I needed to see you once last time."

"To see the dagger you left pushed in just a little farther than before? You made your choice, Christine. You didn't need to come here."

The hurt was thick in his voice and I knew he was holding back from letting it all out. I wanted him to let go. I wanted to lay everything out on the table, that's why I came. Wasn't it?

"You gave me an impossible choice."

"And yet you made it."

"You were going to kill him, Erik!" I spat into the blackness, "What was I to do?"

"I wasn't going to go through with it." He said softly, "I couldn't hurt you like that. I knew I could not force you to love me."

"It didn't seem that way with your noose around his neck. You knew what you were doing." My voice shook freely now, my nerves no longer getting the best of me. Instead, white-hot anger licked at my skin. I remembered the pained expression on Raoul's face when he realized there was no way to win against the Phantom. Raoul resolving to die for me was forever etched into my mind.

"As did you. How quickly you forget your little plot to kill me." Erik laughed darkly and I was thankful he couldn't see me wince, "Lure me with your voice and then what, Christine? Shoot me? Was that the plan?"

"I wouldn't have let them hurt you."

"Yes, you would have. You were terrified of me, remember? As you should be. I'm a monster and a coward. You should have held that gun yourself and aimed it right at my black heart. "

I heard the bed creak underneath him as he shifted his body, his hunched form now standing tall in front of me.

"Now, I ask you again. Why did you come here?" He demanded.

"I had to see you." I breathed, "God forgive me, I had to see you."

"I will forever resent you for what you did to Raoul." I felt fresh tears prick at my eyeballs before they let themselves go, dropping freely onto my cheeks, "I love him. He's kind, he's generous and he's comfortable. He's everything I should want in a man."

I heard Erik exhale loudly before I closed my eyes. A dull ache was beginning to form in my temples as I finally admitted it out loud.

"But, he's not you."

The revelation passed through my lips leaving them cold and trembling. I didn't want to believe it, I didn't even want to hear myself say it. So many nights I laid awake dreaming of a man's touch. So many times I woke in a cold sweat only to realize the man in my dreams was not Raoul. It was the touch of my Angel's.

"I am terrified." I whispered into the blackness, "At one point I was terrified of you. But now? Now I am more terrified of going the rest of my life without knowing what it's like to be with you."

"You've done inexcusable things. Things that should make me want to run far away from you when all I want to do is touch you."

He was dark, angry, but I knew his soul wasn't the rotten core he so wanted me to believe. After all, wasn't I just as dark as he was? Wasn't I just about to plunge headfirst into my desires and damn anyone I hurt in my wake?

He didn't jump from me when my hands reached for him in the darkness. Instead, his warm grip latched on to my wrist to pull me closer to him, pressing me against his hard chest so that I could almost make out his face in the night.

"You lie."

"I do not." I whispered, the smell of him filling my nostrils. His scent was clean, a hint of the charred rubble that surrounded him lingered on his skin, "Believe me. Please."

Erik released his grip on my arm and crooked a finger under my chin, lifting my face closer to his, "This is all a wicked dream that I shall wake up from. You're not real."

The tremor in my hands had long disappeared as I reached out my palm to caress the mutilated side of his face. My fingertips ran over the hard bumps and lines that made up the flesh on his cheek. I couldn't make them out in the darkness, I could only feel the distortion of his face underneath my fingers. He didn't pull away and instead, leaned into my touch as his palm ghosted my forearm.

"I can feel you." Erik whispered, "You're really here?"

"I am." I pushed back the lump in my throat and dropped my hand from his face, instantly hurdling myself into him and wrapping my arms around the firmness of his waist. His trembling hands found my hair as he smoothed it down, his breathing coming in shallow gasps.

"Oh my God."

With my cheek burrowed into the rough scars that adorned his flesh, I could feel the quick pacing of his heartbeat as it thumped against his chest. The rhythm matched mine almost completely.

"I want you, Erik." His hand stilled on my hair and I heard him stop breathing, "All of you."

"Let us forget everything. It no longer matters. It's just you and I now."

His hands dropped from my hair and found their way to my shoulders, pushing me back and away from him with his firm grip. I could feel his thumbs as they pressed into my collarbone. His thoughts were loud as his soul searched into mine for answers. The dark allowed me to be free and confident. Allowed me to say things I didn't dare to say in the light of day.

"It's okay." His abdomen clenched when I ran my fingers over his navel, "You don't have to hide anymore. Not around me."

Erik sighed before loosening his grip on my shoulders. His chest touched mine as he stepped and blocked me in, his hand reaching down to cup my tear-stained cheek.

"You want me? Even with a face like this?" He sounded disgusted, hurt. My heart broke for the way he was feeling. I wanted to ease his pain and erase any agony I had caused him. I wanted to make him feel whole for once in his life, to please him.

"Kiss me. Please, just kiss me."

He jerked my head closer to him as his lips came crashing down on mine with urgency. I groaned into his mouth as he pried my lips open, my hands desperately clinging to his bare shoulders and holding him as close to me as I possibly could. His firm grip on my waist never loosened as he pulled me tighter against him, allowing me to feel every curve of him beneath my chemise.

This was how I knew him to be, gentle and passionate, not the monster he made himself out to be. This was the man I knew he kept hidden from the world, the man that was aching to break free from its own self-made bonds. A man that was completely reserved for me. A man who wanted me in a way that came equal to my own desires.

He could be good and pure, his innocence unfortunately washed away by years of cruelty. This was the man I longed for in the deep recesses of the night. My whole soul cried out for him in want and adoration. I couldn't excuse the things he did, I couldn't even try. It scared me to know I wasn't even ashamed of the wickedness of his actions at the Opera Populaire. The night of fire didn't bother me anymore. Being away from him was more painful than that.

Erik pulled away from our kiss and rested his forehead on mine, taking steadying breaths as his hand caressed my cheek, "Christine, I love you."

"Then be with me." I held my hand over his heart, "Show me how you love me."

He sighed into my ear as he murmured low and soft, "You want me to take you? Here, before your wedding night?"

I nodded against his scarred cheek as his groan vibrated against my ear. I didn't want to talk about the wedding, of Raoul. In this darkness, it was only us. The rest of the world just melted away in his embrace.

"It pains me to say I don't know how."

My lips fluttered into a smile as my fingers grasped onto his, interlacing them with mine to undo the ribbon of my cloak and effectively let it fall to the floor in a heap of fabric.

"I can show you," I whispered, my hands guiding him to the lace at my collarbone, forcing them to push the material over my shoulders. "I can show you how you touch me when I dream of you."

"You dream about this?" His voice rasped, "You dream of how I touch you?"

I closed my eyes, revelling in the feeling of his warm hands on my skin. I urged his fingers to push the chemise lower until finally my breasts were revealed and bared to him. Slowly, I dragged his fingers to the most sensitive parts of my chest and he readily cupped my breast, squeezing gently.

"I want you, Erik. I want you so bad that it keeps me up at night when I shouldn't be thinking of you."

He groaned low and gravelly, untangling himself from my grasp until his finger and thumb pinched the stiffness of my exposed nipple. I gasped at the sensation and he stilled.

"No, don't you stop." I breathed, stepping the rest of the way out of my chemise and letting it fall beside my disposed cloak.

Erik pinched again before wrapping his arm around my abdomen and pulling me closer while my skin puckered at the feeling of his warm, bare skin on mine. He guided me until my knees hit the edge of his bed and lowered into the softness of the material underneath me. Thick furs caressed my back as I melted into them.

"In your dreams," Erik's voice lowered into my ear and he laid a flat palm on my belly before moving it close to my womanhood in torturous brushes. My stomach flexed when his fingers curled around the soft curls that lead to my entrance, "Do I touch you here?"

I shivered into him as his weight lowered on the bed beside me. Reaching for the hand still tightly wrapped in my hair, I moved his fingers until they brushed at the bundle of nerves beneath the growing wetness of my folds, "There. Touch me there."

Erik was more than willing to comply, his thumb rubbing slow, agonizing circles around me. A deep heat flushed across my belly as he continued, causing the ache within me to grow and grow. I'd only felt this way when I touched myself while dreaming of him. I had never felt this from another man's hand, let alone his.

He chuckled against my neck, placing soft kisses across my collarbone. A long finger prodded into my wetness before entering inside and I moaned. This proved as motivation for him as he pushed into me again and again, his thumb and fingers nearly throwing me over the edge.

"I like it when you squirm beneath me." His teeth grazed my neck and I couldn't stop the moan that escaped. I couldn't take his soft touches anymore. I needed more of him, all of him.

"Take me." I begged, "Please, God. Take me."

My body ached as he removed his fingers from me and hopped off the bed, the drop of his trousers hitting the stone floor echoed off the walls. And then he was above me, gently moving my legs wider apart so that he could fit between them. His warm hands grasped the underside of my thigh and I shivered in anticipation when he positioned himself against me.

My virginity had been reserved for my wedding night. A night I pushed deep into the base of my skull now. At one point, I did believe I wanted this with Raoul. But now, I only wanted to be consumed by Erik, letting him have me in a way no other man had even come close to. I was his to take, I always was.

I whimpered as the tip of his erection pressed into the heat between my thighs, causing me to reach out for him in the blackness. I found his shoulders as he leaned over me, stretching into me to fill me, slowly and gently until finally penetrating me fully.

He stilled once he was inside and a hand brushed against my cheek, moving a stray curl from my face, "Did I hurt you?"

The pain was bearable and not unwanted. For the small amount of discomfort I felt, the pleasure that I gained from hearing his moans outweighed it. I rocked my hips against him and he took a sharp intake of breath, moving again inside me.

He started slowly at first with quiet thrusts until his climax started to grow. The heat within my belly climbed with every push and movement of his hips until I was digging my fingernails into the slick skin on his back. I needed him closer, impossibly closer. He called my name over and over and I knew it wouldn't be long for him.

Finally letting go, I allowed my orgasm to take me, bucking my hips high into the air against him as my cries echoed into the night. Erik wasn't far behind me, pumping a few more feverish times before collapsing on top of my shaking body.

I listened to his breathing slow as he came down from his climax and pressed a kiss against his marred cheek, letting it linger there for a few moments as our heartbeats slowed. The wetness of his tears and sweat remained on my lips as Erik pulled out of me, reaching for my waist with his strong arms and pressing me into his side.

"My angel." He whispered into my hair and I sighed into his chest.

"I'm yours."

"And I've always been yours." He swallowed, "Our souls are so perfectly matched that I cannot bear to think of us parted."

His large hand grasped onto my fingers and swallowed them as he squeezed, "I want to be the man you want."

His voice was so thick with emotion that my head snapped up towards his face. My eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness enough to see the hurt that I knew was washed over his features. I could only hear him, feel him.

"I long to be the man you see me as, Christine. I want to do that for you. I want to be better."

"Oh, my love." My lips pressed against the hard plane of his chest and I snuggled tighter, taking in as much of his warmth as I could, "You're all that I need. I want you as you are now."

"I cannot give you what Raoul can give you. He can give you the life you deserve."

"No." I said firmly, "He can't. Not like you can."

"Being here with you now," I whispered, "I can hardly face tomorrow. I dread to think of it. I will not do it."

Raoul's handsome face flashed in my mind. We were so in love once, right? Or maybe I never was, maybe he was always more eager to please me than I was him. Sure, I loved him in a way one does a dear friend. Marriage to him seemed like everything that I could ever want or dream. I would be safe, comfortable. Except, the man who I dreamed of was gripping me tight against his body and not the man who would be meeting me at the altar.

Silence fell over us as Erik's hand trailed lazy circles on my collarbone. I wanted to say more, to tell him how he was always the one who captured my heart. But, words weren't necessary to express the emotions I so desperately longed to convey.

Instead of speaking, I peppered kisses on the scars of his chest before turning my chin to taste the sweetness of his neck. He shivered underneath me as I hitched my leg over his waist and hoisted myself on top of him. My nipples brushed against his skin as my back arched to meet his lips with mine.

Hungrily, he grabbed my face and moulded his lips against me. I grabbed his bottom lip with my teeth and nipped it slightly earning a faint moan from him. I needed him again, once would never be enough. I longed to make the hurt go away, to forget about tomorrow. It was only him and I, always.

Lifting my hips, I lowered myself onto his erection and grasped for his chest. His hands moved against my skin and landed on my backside, squeezing and stretching my buttocks apart as I rocked against him.

His mouth met my chest and grabbed a nipple between his teeth, gently nipping and biting as I moved. I could hear my moans and whimpers filling the room but I didn't care. Erik wasn't silent either, growls of desperation scratching across his throat as he built his second orgasm of the night.

I let my head tilt back in ecstasy, my long curls bouncing across my back with every one of our thrusts. His hand left my backside and wrapped itself in my hair, twisting it at the base of my neck. He tightened his grip and pain flashed against my head. My gasp filled our ears as he let out a breathy chuckle. Suddenly, he sat upright, his hand still tightly woven at my neck as I straddled him.

Our pace slowed as he licked and kissed my neck, his hand guiding my rocking movements into his hips, "Again." He demanded, "I know you can bring yourself to do it again."

I nodded, my orgasm nearly reaching its peak as his mouth clamped over mine and swallowed my cries. His arm reached behind me to steady me as I came and writhed against him. I could hear him whispering soft and low into my ear as he too joined me in the throes of passion.

Resting my forehead on his damp shoulder, I let my breathing fall back into its natural rhythm. His chest rose and fell with mine until we were in sync, still intertwined within each other. With gentle hands, Erik moved my body off of him and nestled me into his side, kissing my temple as I rested my hands on his chest.

"My Christine." He murmured.

"I love you." I said into the darkness, my eyes fluttering closed as his fingers found my hair and smoothed it down. A dull vibration from deep within his chest hummed as he began to serenade me to sleep. It was a melody I knew well, better than any song I'd heard before. Allowing the haze of sleep to wash over me, I felt safe and comforted in his arms, finally at peace with the choice I was about to make.

I knew I would reach for him again in the night and I knew he would comply with my every need. He would be there as I reached for him in urgency when I needed to feel him against me again and I knew he would be there to leave lingering kisses on my flushed skin.

I needed him there, now and always. I wouldn't go through with the wedding in the morning. How could I? How could I possibly face the rest of my life without this man beside me?

I would be there at daybreak to remind him of how much I loved him and needed him and how I couldn't bear the thought of him gone ever again. I could finally make him happy, we could be happy together.

Just us and our music.


End file.
